Kindred by J. A. Redmerski

say, shaking my head, “he’s definitely human. I guess I just forget that sometimes.” I look over at him too, and feel guilty for it.
    “A natural,” she says in a soft, distant voice.
    Not sure if there is some kind of hidden meaning behind that, but I get the strangest feeling from it. I might’ve probed her about the comment if I didn’t realize all of a sudden that I’m feeling miraculously better. I lift my head upward and then swish it side to side just to see if I’ll get dizzy or lose the few bites of rice I had earlier, but I feel fine.
    In fact, I feel awesome.
    Maybe the sickness jumped off me and decided it liked Genna better. It’s a bad thing to wish upon someone, but I can’t help it! Vacation is at stake here!
    Before I can comment on how great I feel—because it’s definitely conversation-worthy—everyone who is sitting suddenly rises into a stand and I feel Isaac’s hand slip around my upper arm. Genna stands up beside me too. I notice I’m slightly taller than her, maybe by an inch, but it’s enough to satisfy my need to have something that surpasses her.
    The voices carrying on all throughout the room and the upstairs floor overlooking the den slowly begin to fade as a tall woman—taller than my triumphant one inch—enters the room. She wears tight black leather clothing and lace-up boots with thick, short heels. Only the skin of her hands, her face and her throat, shows. The tight collar of the long-sleeved top that she wears covers the back of her neck and curves in an elegant wave around the front where it splits downward into a V at the base of her throat. Her cheekbones are sharp and hard and the way her fierce dark red hair is pulled tightly into a ponytail stretches her face and eyebrows into an even more severe line.
    She scares me. Although almost as stunning as Genna Bishop (but older and with no glow to her face), I can bet this woman has probably never smiled in her life. She looks every bit unfriendly, military-strict even, with rigorous determination and intolerance to failure in her eyes.
    She reminds me of Trajan.
    Absently, I feel my hand tighten around Isaac’s, my fingers crushing his into compliance.
    “Who’s that?” I whisper harshly to him, but I never take my eyes off the woman…or werewolf, which I’m sure she is.
    Isaac moves his thumb in a circular motion over the sensitive skin between my thumb and index finger, soothing me. “That’s Seth’s mother, Nataša Vargasavi c . She’ll be Seth’s escort to Serbia.”
    Nataša…that name…I remember that name from the old book in the chest at the Vargas house seven months ago. I see the pages flipping in front of my eyes again, the foreign language, the sketch art and what those in the art symbolized. I can even still smell the mildew and salt of the chest that protected the book. I can feel the fragile, historical pages moving across my fingers, making me feel dirty and in a way, unfaithful.
    “Glad she’s not my mother,” Isaac adds, leaning closer to my ear. “She’s worse than Sibyl.”
    Finally, I tear my gaze away from Nataša to see Isaac beside me, to see if he looks as crazy as he sounded just then.
    “ What ?” I say, unbelieving. “How can anyone be worse than your mother?” Wait…I need to contemplate this for a sec. If she’s worse than Sibyl, the one who tried to kill me and Isaac, why in the hell would she be here? I glance at Nataša quickly one more time. I don’t know which is more pressing, that particular biting question, or feeling guilty for talking about Isaac’s mother the way I just did.
    I choose to get my half-assed apology out of the way first.
    “I mean…well, you know what I mean,” I say.
    Sibyl is an awful woman; even Isaac will be the first to admit it, but it still feels like an insult whenever I’m the one saying it. Isaac doesn’t care, I know, but I have a submissive relationship with guilt.
    “He’s right,” Nathan says, “If Seth ever comes